1957-09-14 — Page 13

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1987.

Page -13

!

B

I've seen

I.D.B. at work

A MAN DIGS UP A DIAMOND-THEN THE SMUGGLING RING THAT COVERS

THE WORLD MOVES INTO ACTION...

ĮREAKING the silence of the steamy jungles of Sierra Leone is the click of picks

and shovels that sound like woodpeckera at work.

Wielding the shovels, picks, and sieves are the "front" workers of the 1.D.B. men-illlelt diamond buyers.

From the villages and a few towns of Sierra Leone, a Crown Colony half the size of England and Wales, the people hend for the jungles for diamonds and smuggling.

It is bellaved that nearly £20,000,000 worth of diamonds a year are smuggled out of the Colony.

Behind the pick-and-shovel brigade is 0 highly-organised smuggling pipeline that stretches from the jungles via adjoining Liberia fo Beirut in the Lebanon

And from shady traders in Beirut the parcels of stones, cach worth a fortune, often find their way into Rusgla.

There they do not adorn the necks of beautiful women,

There the diamonds become the cutting tools that help to make weapons of war. like the inter-continental ballistic missile, And because Russia Is deprived of access to normal diamond supplies, Illicit dia- mord digging has become major activity of the Colony.

the

of

So great has the illicit digging become that many more diamonds are smuggled out the country than the big mining out of its vast company takes concession legally.

The company

is

London-

bossed Sierra Leone Selection Trust, part of the Oppenheimer "ring" which keeps a taut grip on world diamond suppiles and Bales

An army'

CHERRA LEONE ls the one bly leek in a world-tight "ring." It is a smugglers' paradise,

Floads virtually do not exist. to the dia- Travel up-country mond areas is hazardous, with: the filmsy bridges over rushing rivers often swept away in the monsoon season which steams the country up into a Turkish bath atmosphere.

There is only a handful

by FREDERICK ELLIS

well-organised diamond-digging and snuggling.

It is a force quite incapable of controlling the ever-growing smuggling army.

The Belt diggings have brought roaring gold rush boom times to remote mining towns, Africans who desert into the jungle to set themselves up as self-employed illegal diamond for diggers quiedly earn what them are rich sums.

best diamond market

stones.

for gera

Reputable firme hale this illicit business but they have to compete with the less reputable oncs,

Prices soar

HE smuggling boom bas

distorted

the

of economy Sierra Leone, Prices of shovels, picks, and sleves have rocketed.

Yet thest receive only a Food prices have soared as the

hot money floods the country,

fraction of the real value of the stones.

The big money is made by the "middle men who get the stones out of the country, travel- ling among the illicit diggings with case-loads of notes.

Syria-Liberia

EY ure largely Syrians, who I virtually control the up- country trade of the Colony.

So highly organised the racket that light nir- craft innd

I secret jungle airstrips to ferry the stones out, malcly to the rucshackle Negro republic of Liberia.

My friend was the buyer for a famous American firm.

For the smaller fry the big bay is

beer--and beer-crozed natives are part of the ID.B. bacirwash.

But for the big operators or natives who strike it rich the popular buy 19 a big, black, ahiny, new Humber.

the

The diggers coine into the sultry slam of Freetown-the only place of any size In country with biered sultense: stuffed with notes. They buy the cars for casti.

Often the newly rich cannot even drive the cars. Even TV sets are bought-tor prestige purposes, for there is no TV in the Colony.

It is a comincn a mud hut with heating or

sight to see no lighung. drainage proudly

enormous

I sat last year sipping lager In a bar

Liberia's capital. furnished with an in Monrovia.

ond quite useless-refrigerator.

In an attempt to end the

the smuggling racket

Sierra Leone Government decided make diggings legal if the cluiras were registered.

And to sell their stones legally tu the omleto! Oppenheimer "ring."

A shadowy character joined us and in front of my eyes a parcel of stones was negotiated. Destination, New York,

For though the majority of

the of stones and their way to police to keep track of the Middle East, America is still the

MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN

ARE YOU SURE

YOU CAN DO IT, KORE? IT'S THE ONLY WAY TD STOP A POSSI→ BLE WAR!

--ITSAREK --YES--

LALUST NOW TRY / BUT THRCÁIGH TO REACH THE / A CONCEALEP. OTHER KING-7 MICROPHONE- GOODBYE,

KORR.

GOODBYE. MANDRAKE,

JOHNNY HAZARD

HE'S GOT A FRAIL IN TOW?.

10

But the scheme has falled to

work, for the literate workers

FROE KORR HAS VISITORST MANPRACE AND LOTHAR!), SURROUND THE PULÁCET HEMUST NOT ESCAPEL

still prefer

up country to go

-Sierra Leone's Government is and dig Wegally.

powerless to stop the racket and It is estimated that

more despite many arrests of illicit than o,hog out at a total diggers, the game stil goes on, population

125,000 are

A diamond expert in Free- engaged in 1.DB. activities.

Inflation has followed the town told me it would take a flood of het diamond mency regiment of soldiers to slop the making life for law-abiding liicit diggings. notives extremely difficult.

But the shadowy Syrian merchants are making fortunes. For one big stone, half the size of a matchbox, the African digger receives the local fortune of £200. That stone is worth

£40,000 in America.

As always in these gold rush activities, outbreaks of violence follow as the tides.

Shures of tho TAILPIECE:

the company owning

legal diamond concession fell 2s. 6d. the other day..

Taxation drove me

from England

from SAM WHITE, Geneva

TN one of those Swiss lakeside hotels to which a polyglot collection of aged rich retire, seemingly only for the purpose of dying as sumptuously as they have lived, I came across an old acquaintance, Professor Derek Jack-

Son

He was having tea in the The fact is that Jackson 1s o inevitable hotel palm court brilliant and delicated scientist, lounge with his funcce, who one of the great physicists of will shortly become his fourth this age, wife.

in

A

She is an Englishwoman her early forties (Jackton 51)

glows with and she beautiful complexion and a charming gaiety of manner,

Formerly Miss Consuela Eyre, she is the widow of a German, Frince Ratibor, who died years ago.

10

Like Jackson, she prefers to live out of England, and hou visited the country twice since

1938,

OUT OF FOCUS Jackson is a man whom it is terribly easy to get out of focus, Because of his great inherited wealth, because uf a certain boyish wilfulness in his manner,

because of his reputation

For Onancial reasons Jackson has just established his legal domielle In Switzerland, but in France, where he lives most of the year, he works for stretches of 10 hours a day without o French National break at the Centre of Scientific Research.

There he is engaged in pure research unburdened as be would be at a univeralty by leaching duties,

Here in Switzerland he completing a volume detailing his latest researches in spectro- scopy.

Why does not Jackson cume back and work in Britain? A man of extreme Right wing political views, he told me: “Because I would be crippled by taxation. That is the effect British taxation has drives mast men

Iko me out

of the country."

steeplechase jockey, because the exuberance he shows in relaxation, it is easy to overlook

the underestimate important thing about him,

Dr

By Lee Falk and Phil Davis

WHAT AD YOU

TELL

KCAR:

・TO DO?·

N WHAT DID TELL YOU MANDRAKE AFTER TELL HIMY IT'S OVER

LOTHARA

MIXES LIKE MAGIC

LUZCO

ICE CREAM

SIMPLY MIX.

CHILL,

WHIP

& FREEZE

Relax with

LUX

Cigarettes

Here in Hongkong

you too can now

enjoy the luxury ·

of Lux Cigarettes.

LG-i8

Acclaimed the world'

over for their superior

quality and smoothly

satisfying flavour

Sole Agents: SHEWAN TOMES & CO.,LTD.

THIS WATCH WAS FLIGHT TESTED FOR YOU!

The Universal POLAROUTER, worn by all SAS flight captains.

Flight-tested accuracy is yours with the Universal POLAROUTER, the selfwinding watch that keeps the flight captains of S.A.5. (Scandinavian Airlines System) on time in all parts of the world. The success story of the POLAROUTER began on November 15, 1954. On that day, 5.A.S. opened the top of the world to commercial aviation, .Flying the direct transpolir route from Europe to

the U.S. West Coast. 5.A.5. flight chloft needed a watch they could trust.

Universal, whose factory is the most modern In Switzerland, designed the watch and fictingly named it the POLAROUTER

Today, some 10,000 flying hours and over 50 million passenger miles later, flight captains on the antire, worldwide S.A.S. network keep on time with Universal POLAROUTER watches, 50 can you.

And you will be wearing a watch that's as hand- tome and up-to-date as the sleek silver birds on which the POLAROUTER was flight-tested for you.

"POLEROUTER..

UNIVERSAL

GENEVE

#154. The world's first commercial Polar air service wis ploneered by SA..., vid opened in Nov. 1954, Sinking Europe and the UIS, West Coast via Greenland.

$157 The first commercial Air sarvića to cross the North Pole will be opened by SAL S 1937, linking Europe and the Ear, Eur. With vona stop in Aleske, this second route in che SAK Potar Syteam will cut travel time from *a iba present 51 hours via lodía co 30 homes. 54.5, will use the new DCFC on the North Pole routy me fattest plane today.

DON'T SHOOT! GIZMO'S GOT KITTY PRISONER!

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF HIS STYMIS ALOVE, CIEMO KEAPS UP THE SLOPE!

By Frank Hobbies

SROUND-LEADER I GOLO-LEASER....

| BIO BUY DRASSED LIKE DEAR,

| NOLDING GIRL AS HOSTAGE, HEADED (UP MOUNTAIN È TAIL, HIM IN YOUR CHOPPER/WE'LL FOLLOW AT BAFE

DISTANCE /

AUSTIN!

THE CAR

for your HOME LEAVE

METRO CARS (H.K) LTD.

Hong Kong Agentsi

Rose D'Or Watch Ca. 50 Quest'i kaed., Tal Song Watch Ovə, 204 Des Voeux lid.. Bedios Watch Ca. 104. Queen's Road, Sul Wah Watch Co, 77 Qussa's Hand, C. Houset Trezec, 3 Paddar Street

Lam Tuan Ting Witch Co.370 Déu Yerus US.

· Global protected;

The "POLAROUTER” ha Untveršäi Genève's calebrated automatic movement shock, resat

magnetic and highly accurate,